Posted by
Conservative USA on Friday, December 05, 2008 1:00:21 AM
Since the electoral defeat on Election Day, many commentators have argued that a division is taking place within the conservative movement and the Republican coalition. This division, they argue, is taking place among the three components of the coalition Ronald Reagan put together: fiscal conservatives/libertarians, social/cultural conservatives and national-security/defense conservatives. According to this view, these three elements are fighting against each other to take control of the Republican Party.
They are right on the notion of a division taking place within the GOP and the conservative movement. However, the nature of the division taking place is not the one they argue is going on. The real division is the one between the center-right, solutions-oriented pragmatists and the far-right, ideological purists.
The first group, the center right, is formed by pragmatic and solutions-oriented conservatives who want to put the tactics of divisive politics aside and begin a new era of bipartisanship, while, at the same time, keeping the basic principles of conservatism. They are pushing for a two-way approach to rebuild the GOP and conservatism. First, they want to go back to the traditional conservative and Republican principles of fiscal restraint, limited government, free enterprise, strong defense, personal liberty and tolerance. They believe the GOP and the current leaders of the conservative movement have abandoned the real principles that have always defined conservatism and Republicanism. Second, they want to reform the party and adapt its message to the current era. They want to start talking about the issues that people really care about: the economy, the environment, renewable energy, health care reform, education reform. They believe in a welcoming, inclusive conservatism and a big-tent GOP. Representatives of this camp include conservatives like Tim Pawlenty, Charlie Crist, Lamar Alexander, Mitch Daniels, Christine Todd Whitman, John Danforth, Peggy Noonan, Kathleen Parker, David Brooks, and moderates like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Colin Powell, among others.
The second group, the far right, is led by rigid ideological conservatives and populists who want to move the movement and the party far to the right and exclude anyone that does not agree with them one hundred per cent of the time. They are willing to continue with the tactics of division and hate that have expelled moderates, independents and even conservatives, and refuse to consider any change in the policy proposals they pursue. Their narrow-minded vision is characterized by litmus tests on every single issue for everybody who wants to run for office as a Republican: from abortion to amendments to the Constitution to preserve “traditional values,” from immigrant-bashing rhetoric to climate change denial. They think of themselves as the true inheritors of the Reagan Revolution and the only true conservative Republicans (no wonder not even Reagan nor Goldwater would be able to pass all their litmus tests). Representatives of this camp include conservatives like James Inhofe, Jim DeMint, David Keene; social fundamentalists like James Dobson, Tony Perkins and Gary Bauer; the talk-radio populist crowd (Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Laura Ingraham); and neo-populist stars Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee.
Now, since when did conservatism become the ideology of “traditional values” (whatever that means) instead of the philosophy of liberty? How was it possible for a group of rigid ideologues, populists and social fundamentalists to distort our ideology and take over our party? Would Abraham Lincoln have supported the narrow-minded approach followed by this minority of far-right demagogues? Would Barry Goldwater have tried to legislate morality and abandon any notion of personal liberty? Would Ronald Reagan have called for the expulsion of moderates from the GOP? If you know something about these Republican icons, your answer will be no.
The truth is that the ones who think of themselves as the true inheritors of the conservative tradition are precisely the ones that have abandoned the core beliefs behind it. Anglo-Saxon conservatism is anchored on the principles of the classical liberal tradition of John Locke and Adam Smith: freedom, moderation and tolerance. Unfortunately, many self-described conservatives have forgotten this fact.
If the Republican Party is to emerge from the electoral debacle it suffered on November 4th, it should follow the center-right approach, the one that truly represents the principles of conservatism and Republicanism. As many of the members of the far-right group are saying these days, America is still a center-right nation. The problem is that they forgot the center and went all the way to the right.